this gift
by altschmerz
Summary: When the end of the world comes to Mercy West, it is a devastation that leaves none unscathed, and only fifteen staff members and patients alive. Jackson and April are two of fifteen, and when they reach Seattle Grace, a thriving safe-zone, they begin to process what they've lost and what it means that they're still alive. (h/c bingo, 'survivor's guilt', zombie apocalypse au)


and the grey's za au continues! i certainly hope i did okay with these two. let me know what you think, and if there's a specific character you'd like to see focused on in a piece for this au, drop me a line!

for my round 8 h/c bingo free space, for which i chose 'survivor's guilt'.

* * *

In the early days of knowing each other, Jackson Avery and April Kepner aren't friends. They don't even really talk much, outside of being classmates and coworkers within Mercy West's residency program. When things get personal it's always April and Reed, Jackson and Charles. Perhaps it's as simple as a gender divide holdover from grade school, or maybe it's just which personalities meshed better, or even something as random as luck. April had a locker next to Reed's. Jackson ran into Charles in the coffee cart line three days in a row.

Then the world ends, and Mercy West burns to the ground, and where there once was a room full of people, cohorts in a program together, there is now just them. Just Jackson and April. They weren't friends before and maybe friends is the wrong word for what they are now. Maybe there's no word for what they are now, but what they do know is they are all they have left.

Seattle Grace is a Hail Mary pass that, when the doors open and safety lies inside, is caught more beautifully than either of them thought possible. Because space is limited and because quite frankly they don't really want to be alone, Jackson and April end up sharing a patient room converted into a miniature residence, or what passes for one. Once the running stops, reality sinks in, and Jackson and April are left sitting on beds opposite one another, trying to make sense of what their life looks like now.

"I killed Charlie."

There are two people April has ever heard call Charles Percy 'Charlie'.

One is Reed Adamson, and her face springs uninvited to the forefront of April's mind, sending something sick and cold into the pit of April's stomach. The knees of her pants are still stained what looks like dark brown, but April knows was at its genesis bright red. The second person she's heard use that nickname is the one who just said it now. But before today, before right now, Jackson only ever said it to Charles himself. It was a pact of friendship, 'Charlie' was an agreement, a shared possession of theirs spoken only as a direct form of address.

Then again, April supposes it can't ever be used that way again, and maybe this is how Jackson chooses to cope with that. Maybe 'Charlie' is a memorial now.

Or more likely, given the way he looks right now, the empty guilt that had hollowed out Jackson's voice and left it heavy like a bag of stones, thrown into the Pacific, maybe 'Charlie' is a confession. A punishment upon the man who says it with so much sorrow in his voice April is worried it may close over his head and drown him.

"You didn't kill-" April falters. She can't say it, can't call him Charlie, can't use that word that belongs- belonged to Reed and belongs to Jackson. Percy is what comes naturally. Charles is too much like a jab, like pointing out what Jackson just called him, but on the other hand, Percy feels disrespectful. So April finishes awkwardly, backtracking and settling for a generic, "You didn't kill him."

"I pointed a gun at him and I shot it until he fell and didn't get up, April," Jackson says. His voice is harsh and hard now, though she knows it isn't directed at her. He's freaking out. He's _been_ freaking out, since things really spiralled, since he had to aim a gun at the shambling, tattered ruin that used to be his best friend and put Charles to rest.

April though, April is calm. There had been a few minutes when she'd been completely hysterical, when Reed's blood had coated her hands and her knees and her entire brain was one long claxon scream of pure, raw terror. But, probably to the surprise of most of the people who know her - knew her, they were probably dead by now - she had quickly come to a state of ice cold focus. Calm had fallen over her as April realized the only good it would do to lose it now was to get her killed too. She was all that was left, and if she died too, it would all be over. Mercy West, her resident class, would disappear into the miasma of chaos that made up their world now. If April could do one thing, she could make sure they were remembered, at least by one person. That at least one person could still pray for them.

Then she saw Jackson, and it crashed into her mind like a tidal wave of relief. _I'm not the only one. I'm_ not _the only one. It isn't just me._

 _I don't have to carry all these ghosts alone._

It's got to be a little selfish, April figures, that a good chunk of her relief at Jackson's survival was purely gladness at not being the sole survivor, not bearing the death, the destruction, the guilt, alone. Someone else is there to bear it with her. Someone else will know exactly how she feels. And Jackson does feel it too. April knows he does.

Jackson feels it all, and she can see it eroding him.

"I killed Charlie." This time, Jackson's voice is quiet. Almost a whimper. "April, he's dead. I _killed_ him. Charlie's dead, Reed's dead, they're all dead."

A split second decision raises April from her bed over to his. She curls herself over his slumped form, cheek against the back of one heaving shoulder.

"We're still here, Jackson," she says, as reassuringly as she can, which is almost not at all. "Not everything is gone. I'm still here. We're still here."

And then, of course, there is the matter of 'here'.

It's April who ventures forth from their room first. Jackson is still practically catatonic, consumed by the struggle of dragging breath after breath through the thick cloud of horror suffocating him slowly, while April wanders down the hall with purpose, a destination in her mind for the first time since crossing the threshold.

Richard Webber. She has to find Richard Webber. Lucky for her, Richard Webber proves to be an easy man to find. He's in a meeting with some of the hospital leadership that has sprung up in place of any kind of governmental body. He breaks in the middle of his sentence when April walks in. Richard looks at her expectantly, as do Derek Shepherd and Addison Montgomery.

"I need to help," is what it boils down to. "Let me help. Where do you need me the most?"

They'd looked at her for a long moment, almost like trying to gauge what her motives are.

Eventually, they seem to judge her not a threat, maybe something to do with the Mercy West ID badge she has reflexively pinned to her new scrubs, the ones that don't have Reed's blood all over them. Whatever the reason, they point her down the hall towards Miranda Bailey, and for the first time since the world ended, April feels a little bit like herself again. She sits down in front of a large wall calendar and an assortment of variously colored Post-It notes, and by the time she heads back to her and Jackson's room, the roof watch schedule for the next two weeks has been arranged.

(April hadn't expected how strange it would feel to see her own name on that schedule, paired with Cristina Yang, a woman she's yet to meet. She'd wanted to pair herself with Jackson, familiarity a balm she'll take any place she can get it, but Miranda had stopped her.

"You'll need training," Miranda explained, gently but firmly. "Someone to show you how it's done."

Every face April passes becomes Cristina Yang. She searches for this stranger in the multitude of strangers around her. _Are you Cristina_? she thinks, as every unfamiliar person passes her. No one answers her unspoken question and April is left to wonder.)

Jackson is still sitting on his bed when she gets back to their room. His head is hanging low, shoulders slumped and his old scrubs, blood spattered and ripped, are balled up in his lap. He looks like he's calmed down somewhat, come off his panicked, anxious high of energy, except for the way his hands clutch the fabric. His knuckles are bloodless and though the rest of him is still, minute tremors are visible in the way the fabric twisted in his fingers shakes.

"Talked to Webber today," April says, hanging up her jacket on what used to be an IV stand but now serves as a coat rack by the door. "Helped Miranda Bailey do the roof watch schedule. It was good to feel like I was doing something to help. Something useful."

It's hard to tell why April keeps talking. Maybe because she's always been a nervous talker, filling a cold emptiness with, at the very least, the sound of her voice. Maybe it's because she's hoping that by talking to him, she can pull Jackson out of the hole he's fallen down, frighten off the shadows that have grown so deep in his face she hardly recognizes him.

The next day dawns just the same, damp and desolate, but even the gloom of Seattle (the gloom of the way their world is now) seems less oppressive and strong with a destination in mind, a purpose to April's steps. She walks that path day after day, setting down into her routine with Miranda, carves a niche out for herself in the bureaucracy that somehow still persists.

The day April gets back and finds Jackson not in the room, she's relieved. He's been leaving more lately, stepping out into the world, talking to people. She knows he's begun to make tentative friends, knows he's even begun to step back into work, under the guidance of Mark Sloan. She's glad to see this, glad to see Jackson become more the man she'd gotten glimpses of, back at Mercy West. The gladness, however, fades with the ticking of the clock on the wall.

As hours pass and he doesn't return, she begins to worry. When she runs into Miranda and finds out where he is, that he's gone after two Seattle Grace doctors who've disappeared on a supply run, April is scared.

She stays scared, rooted to the spot in their room, until he gets back.

When Jackson hears that Meredith Grey and Cristina Yang have disappeared, suspected to be deep in trouble, he's moving before he has the chance to realize he's made the decision to. Addison Montgomery and Alex Karev are almost out the door when he intercepts them, telling them firmly, "I'm coming with you."

Meredith and Cristina have become friends of his, over the last couple weeks. Maybe 'friend' is too strong a word, their entanglements in each other's lives new and thready, but these days, if you wait for strong, you might miss your chance entirely. April is the only strong thing in Jackson's life right now, and he's all too aware that he's counting on an awful lot of dumb luck, if he thinks she's not at risk every moment of every day. That they both aren't. So he decides to call them his friends, Meredith and Cristina. Alex, god help him. They're his friends, and maybe they'll be afforded the time to get to know each other the way that word implies they already do.

Not if they die on a supply run, though, and maybe it's selfishness that sends Jackson out the door that day, but he figures his motivation doesn't really matter all that much at this point, not when the end result is at least a hair's increase of the likelihood that one more precious life might be saved today.

He navigates while Addison drives to where Meredith and Cristina were headed, and out of the corner of his eye, he watches Alex, who sits in the back seat. The look on Alex's face is one Jackson remembers seeing in the mirror, those fleeting moments between when he found out about what was coming for them and when it actually got there.

The roof of the store Meredith and Cristina were headed for is caved in. For a moment Jackson cannot remember where he is, the store becoming Mercy West becoming the store becoming Mercy West becoming what difference does it make, they're all dead anyway? Then Alex talks to him and Jackson snaps out of it and has to look at that ruined corpse of a building and decide whether or not to go inside.

(He thinks about Meredith, about the first time he told someone about being an Avery on purpose, rather than because they found out. She understands, he can tell by the way she doesn't judge him when he says that's something he almost likes about this new world, how nobody cares about awards anymore. She makes a face and says 'the Grey Method' and they know they are of the same breed, she and him. They've both seen their last names in medical textbooks and carried legacies so long their spines must have been compressed by the weight of them.

He thinks about Cristina, about handing her a piece of paper, "This is a letter I wrote to April. If I die, will you make sure she gets it?" About how she took it and nodded and caught his arm just as he was about to leave, "If I die, will you find Rachael Weiss? She's the only Jew here I know of, and I'm not observant, but I want someone to say the Mourner's Kaddish for me. When I go."

He thinks about Alex, about falling asleep in what used to be the residents' lounge and waking with Charles' name on his lips and Alex's hand on his back. The man perched on the couch at Jackson's hip and sat there in silence, his hand large and solid between Jackson's shoulder blades, anchoring him when in the aftermath of the dream everything felt like a free fall.

Jackson does not want to see a textbook describing the Grey Method and know this is all that is left of his kindred spirit. He does not want to track down Rachael Weiss, hear the words of an unfamiliar prayer for the dead. He does not want to sit next to Alex Karev, a hand on the man's back while he buries his face in a couch cushion and weeps for the loss of Meredith Grey and Cristina Yang.)

He goes inside.

Alex's hand on his shoulder, reminiscent of that day in the residents' lounge, squeezes hard and grateful, and Jackson thinks that if friendship were a thing that could be felt physically, he's feeling it now, curling its roots around his ribs.

Meredith and Cristina are pulled out of that building alive.

Meredith and Cristina and Alex and Addison and Jackson make it back to Seattle Grace alive.

When he comes back to their room, before his coat is off or his bag is down, April is on him in an instant, hugging Jackson with more strength than at first glance she appears to have.

"God," she says, sobs, into his chest, forehead ducked againt his collarbone. "God. _God._ " Jackson can't tell if she is praying or cursing or merely trying to shove the breadth and depth of everything she's feeling into the one word with a hope of containing it. " _God_."

"I know," Jackson breathes.

"Don't die," April begs.

"I'll try not to."

"Don't you dare _die_ , Jackson Avery," April orders.

"I'll try _really hard_ not to."

They take turns having breakdowns, it would seem. It's morbidly efficient.

It's much later, both of them sitting on April's bed, when Jackson speaks, for the first time since that first night, of Charles.

"I miss him. Charlie."

"I miss Reed," April offers, throwing her heartache in the ring with his.

"It could've been me that died. Maybe it should've been me."

"Or me, but talking like that is selfish and won't help anyone, and we can wish and what-if all day, but this is how it is." Miranda Bailey was the one that told her that, as they put together the next roof watch rotation. _We can wish and what-if all day long, but it won't change that this is how it is, and we have to keep on living anyhow._ April doesn't think she's ever met anyone that smart in her life.

They're both quiet, until Jackson says, "I know your family is in Ohio. My mother is in Boston. We could go looking for them. Try and find our way back home." 'We', no question of either of them going it alone. Not any more.

"I," April says, so quiet the word is almost lost. "I think we should stay. If you're alright with it, I. I would like to stay."

 _Try and find our way back home_ , Jackson thinks, and says, "Okay." Maybe learning to live in this new world isn't about going back home. Maybe it's about taking the shrapnel left to you and building a new one. "Let's stay."


End file.
